


i was a birdcage (and you were meant to fly)

by tophsgf



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Gay Zuko (Avatar), Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, Lesbian Mai (Avatar), Light Angst, M/M, Requited Unrequited Love, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, sokka is so smart but so dumb, they're so stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:29:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26265001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tophsgf/pseuds/tophsgf
Summary: Zuko loves Sokka. He can't help it.Or.Zuko is (unsurprisingly) good at evasion.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 357





	i was a birdcage (and you were meant to fly)

**Her name is Mai, and she’s nice enough.**

Zuko’s been dating a girl for about three months, a dark haired girl with a beautiful face and the ability to out-deadpan even him. They talk about birds, and sometimes she’ll sing Chinese lullabies under her breath. Zuko thinks she’s the most breathtaking person on the planet.  _ Besides Sokka, his treacherous mind supplies, but he pushes that thought down.  _

It’s going well, he knows it is. They’re young enough that there aren’t any expectations, but Zuko thinks they’ll be by each other’s sides for a long time. There’s an understanding between them he doesn’t have with anyone else. It isn't love, not quite, it's more of a camaraderie. He knows they'll last.

Okay, he thinks that. Mai, it seems, has other ideas. She breaks up with him in the hallway between the office and the science wing, the linoleum as her backdrop. 

“I don’t think this is working, I think I’m a lesbian, and there’s something off about us besides the whole ‘I only like girls’ thing,” she says as if she’s ticking off the reasons for their breakup on her thin fingers, expressionless as always. “Maybe we could be friends someday. Come find me when you’re not so stuck, Zuko.”

_ ‘Come find me when you’re not hopelessly in love with your best friend’  _ is what she really means. And Zuko can’t fault her for that.  __

“I’m sorry, man.” Sokka says when Zuko tells him. “I could tell you really liked her.” He sounds sincere, and Zuko absolutely despises him for it.

_ ‘I like her, but I love you.’  _ That’s what he wants to say, with confidence he tends to reserve only for telling Aang that he’s  _ slightly  _ too optimistic about something, or explaining to Toph a new sort of bird he’s spotted. Instead, he decides a simple nod will suffice. 

“S’fine.” He murmurs, going back to pretending to read a book. They’re sitting in the Library, which Sokka seems to frequent more and more, and Zuko is trying not to count Sokka’s eyelashes, fixate on the way work on his family’s fishing boat has trained his form into something Zuko could never compare to, a far cry from the scrawniness he’s grown accustomed to as he nears the end of adolescence. 

“What are you reading?” Sokka’s voice is soft, almost gravelly, and Zuko’s heartbeat betrays him, beating impossibly faster. 

“Sense and Sensibility.” He replies, simply. Because his voice will shake if he says anything more, and besides, he hasn’t read enough to offer a competent opinion on the feminist subtext, anyways. 

“Not as good as Persuasion.” Sokka comments, and Zuko doesn’t try to hide his surprise. “What? It’s not like I was going to read Pride and Prejudice and not read all the rest of Austen.” 

_ Normally, an anecdote like this would make Zuko swoon. But he just doesn’t have the energy. Not this time.  _

_ “ _ I can’t do this right now.” He snaps, taking no pleasure in how visibly Sokka flinches. “See you later.”  _ With anyone else, this would hardly be something of note. But with Sokka? It’s completely out of the blue. _

He’s out of the library before Sokka can say anything, because Zuko may conceal himself with his friends, with his father, even with Mai, but Sokka’s ocean eyes and unabashed kindness have always been and will always be his undoing. 

**Her name is Mai, and Sokka wants to hate her.**

Zuko has been dating a girl for about three months. And Sokka really wants to hate her, to dislike her like the real love interest hates the character foil in romance novels. But she’s sort of nice. Yes, she glares at him, but she talks to him about architecture, about the innovative use of steel in Ba Sing Se, and Sokka realizes that he’ll never hate anyone Zuko loves. Because he loves Zuko.

It’s going well, and Sokka is glad. Because Zuko deserves someone who makes him happy. Someone he doesn’t have to be so guarded with. 

It’s nice, Sokka notes, that Zuko is more open with him than he is with the rest of the Gaang. He just really, really, really wishes he was brave enough to tell Zuko how he feels. 

Zuko would never hurt him on purpose, he knows that, but his blissful ignorance to the reality of Sokka’s feelings for him somehow makes it worse.

And then Zuko abandons him in the library. A place Sokka has recently decided is a safe space for him. Not fair. And when he was about to talk about his favourite Jane Austen novel. Again, not fair.

He finds Zuko in the student garden, which you can only access via the teachers’ lounge. The teachers hate it when he walks through, but they never raise an eyebrow when he’s with Zuko. Sokka theorizes it’s because he growled at them once (or something to that effect). Zuko is very good at being unapproachable for a person who is absolutely nowhere near as intimidating as he wants to be.

“Hi.” Zuko visibly jumps at the greeting, clearly unaware of Sokka’s graceful entrance (he almost tripped over a tomato plant, but he’s electing to ignore that). 

“Hey.” Zuko’s response is almost mumbled. He only does that when he’s nervous about something. 

Neither of them are entirely skilled at the art of conflict resolution, despite both being sons of politicians. 

“I’m sorry for snapping at you,” Zuko says, intently studying his nails. He only does that when he’s really anxious. “It’s just—fuck, this difficult.”

Wow. He really is upset about Mai. “Dude, you just broke up with your girlfriend. It’s fine.”

“It isn’t.” Zuko interrupts, an imperceptible flash of emotion in his golden eyes. “And it’s not about Mai. It’s about you.” 

“Me?” Him? God, he is so screwed. “What about me?”

“Mai broke up with me. Said that I was stuck.”

“That’s total bullshit-” Sokka protests, but Zuko cuts him off. 

“She’s right.” He looks at Sokka with sad eyes, a total contrast to the harshness of his tone. Zuko has always been a beautiful mess of contradictions. “Promise me you won’t hate me for what I’m about to say.” 

“I could never hate you.” Sokka doesn’t even have to think for a moment before he replies. He and Katara used to detest Zuko, on account of the way he had treated Aang in ninth grade, but after a few classes with Zuko, Sokka had realized how much the dark haired boy kept concealed, trained by past experiences. At a party, Zuko had told him how he got his scar, and Sokka had held his hands as he steadied his shaky breathing. For a moment, it was only them in the entire world. 

Obviously, he’s been lost in thought for too long, because Zuko is looking at him with an expression akin to anguish. 

“You will,” Zuko says, with a finality Sokka isn’t expecting. He’s always been serious, but this is another level. “Sokka, Mai broke up with me because she knew I was in love with someone else. And also other reasons.”

Sokka doesn’t press for the other reasons. But his heart catches when Zuko says there’s someone else. Someone else who Zuko loves. Someone else Sokka will never be able to compete with. “Oh.” He’s exceptionally eloquent. His B- in English Literature proves that. Totally.

If Zuko is irritated by Sokka’s less-than-ideal response, he doesn’t show it. In fact, he doesn’t show any sort of emotion. He’s eerily neutral, the way he used to be when Sokka saw him in the hallways with Azula. 

“I’m just-” Zuko’s neutrality is gone, replaced with a frustrated blush. “This is so fucking difficult.”

Sokka knows Zuko. He knows he is a mess of anxieties and sarcastic comments, that behind his quietness is a sharp tongue that rivals even Toph’s. 

What he does not know, however, is what goes on in Zuko’s head. Ever.

“You said it was about me.” Sokka says, against all instincts for self-preservation.

“Sokka,” Zuko breathes, and then Zuko’s lips are on his.

Sokka’s brain short-circuits. He can’t even summon a reaction before Zuko’s pulled back, eyes wide with horror. “I’m so sorry,” Zuko says. And then he fucking jumps the back fence and bolts away. What. The. Fuck.

“Zuko!” Sokka shrieks, startling the teachers who appear to have gathered at the window, probably due to the fact that one of their students just jumped the back fucking fence. 

The librarian, Zuko’s uncle, shoots him a sympathetic look. With the tiniest inclination of his head, he makes a gesture for Sokka to follow Zuko.

Sokka shrugs helplessly. Iroh gestures more animatedly. Sokka shrugs again. Iroh gestures more aggressively, his left hand accidentally smacking Piandao’s face. Piandao looks at Iroh. Iroh looks at Sokka. Sokka sighs, and then he jumps the fence.

Zuko is going to be the death of him.

He finds Zuko in the somewhat disappointing community garden, in the park behind the school. His head is buried in his hands. Sokka prepares himself for what to say, to make some grand romantic gesture, and promptly trips over a tomato plant. They really are out to get him. 

Zuko’s head snaps up. His golden eyes go wide when they see Sokka.

“Is this your secondary location?” Sokka blurts, trying to fill the silence.

“Huh?”

“Well, I followed you to the student garden. And now we’re in the community garden. Seems offly nefarious.”

Zuko rolls his eyes, his gaze not quite meeting Sokka’s. “If it was, you’d only have yourself to blame.”

“True.” 

“That wasn’t funny.”

“I know.” Sokka says, because it wasn’t. “I just wanted to say something.”

“Okay,” Zuko looks as though he’s bracing himself. “Go.”

“Huh?” It takes Sokka a second to recognize what Zuko means. “Oh, no. That was it.”

“That was it?” Zuko looks incredulous. “I kissed you, and all you have to say to me is some unfunny quip about secondary locations?”

“Quip?”

“Shut up. You don’t want to punch me? At all? Not even a little bit?”

“Why would I want to punch you?” Sokka’s really not understanding this quickly derailing train of thought.

“Sokka,” Zuko breathes. “I kissed you.”

“And then you jumped the fence.”

“Because you didn’t want to kiss me and I didn’t want to bother you!”

“Of course I wanted to kiss you!” Their voices are rising. A dog in one of the nearby yards barks in encouragement.

“You-” Zuko says, “I-what?” Sokka knows for a fact Zuko has the highest English grade in the school, it is a little comforting that he seems to be equally as ineloquent as Sokka. 

“Soooo,” Sokka says. 

“So.” Zuko replies. 

It’s so awkward, Sokka decides to put himself out of his misery. Better to end his pining now than pine forever. “I’m sorry you kissed me.”

“You’re apologizing.” Zuko’s golden eyes (Tui and La, have they always been so beautiful? Yes. The answer is yes.) widen. “Because I kissed you?”

“Yes?”

“Why would you apologize for something you didn’t do?”

“Because you felt like you had to do it? To comfort me?”

“You think I kissed you out of pity? I’m the one who just got broken up with, not you. Why would I pity you?” If Zuko was ashamed of kissing him, which he must have been considering the way he parkoured out of the student garden, that shame has clearly been replaced with pure curiosity. “Sokka. That makes no fucking sense.”

Sokka knows he’s smart. It took awhile for him to be secure in this fact, but he knows it. His STEM grades prove it, not that that’s how he defines himself or anything. 

He looks at Zuko. Zuko looks at Sokka. Sokka sighs. “If you didn’t kiss me out of pity for my numerous unsung issues, why did you kiss me?”

“I kissed you because I’m in love with you,” Zuko says quickly, like if he stops in the middle he’ll jump another fence just to get out of this interaction.

Clown music blares in Sokka’s head. Zuko’s looking at him like he’s about to pass out. Such are the things you do as a teenage boy, or something like that. That’s what Aang would say, right? Something something wisdom something something.

“Oh,” Sokka breathes, as the distinct honk of a clown nose goes off in his head. And then he kisses Zuko. Zuko, to his credit, kisses back. When they pull back, both breathless, Zuko smacks Sokka’s arm. 

“Hey! What was that for?”

“I cannot believe it took a goth girl breaking up with me for us to kiss. I cannot believe I jumped a fence in front of the entire faculty of our school. I cannot believe that you thought I kissed you because of some unknown thing I was pitying you for. I fucking hate us, Sokka.” He's trying to play it cool, Sokka can tell, but the tips of his ears are bright red. Gods, he fucking loves Zuko.

So, in response, Sokka just grins, and leans back in for another kiss. 

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i recently wrote a depressing zukka fic, and honestly, i just needed something soft for them. where i wasn't destroying their relationship every chapter. so here we are. i really hope you enjoyed this!  
> (in case anyone was wondering, the title is from the song wolfman by the front bottoms!)


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